One interesting American thing (a technical term, meaning a moment or event, a text, a controversy, an idea, a figure, or whatevertheheckelse I think of) per day, from Ben Railton, a professor of American literature, culture, history, and, natch, Studies.

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Thursday, February 26, 2015

February 26, 2015: Western Mass. Histories: The Bridge of Flowers

[It’s not the
Boston area, and it’s not quite the
Berkshires, so the rest of Western Massachusetts tends to get short shrift
in our images and narratives of the state. Well, no longer! In this week’s
series, I’ll highlight five Western Mass. histories and stories, examples of
how much this part of the state has to offer our collective memories. I’d love
to hear your thoughts on these and other connections!]

I’ve written a
couple of prior posts about historic sites that developed in direct connection
to the late 19th and early 20th century era of local trolley
railways: Charlottesville
(VA)’s Fry’s Spring’s period as a “trolley park”; and one of the most
popular such trolley parks, Newton
(MA)’s Norumbega Park. (Both Boston’s
Revere Beach and New
York’s Coney Island are in that conversation as well.) Although the Bridge
of Flowers is now known as a pedestrian bridge, it began life as a trolley
bridge, built in 1908 to allow the cars of the Shelburne Falls & Colrain Street Railway to
journey between the towns of Shelburne and Buckland. Although these trolleys
carried heavy freight and goods as well as passengers, they nonetheless also
allowed for residents to travel much more easily and frequently between these
communities, creating in the process the kinds of communal and social experiences
for which the trolley parks became so famous.

The railway went
bankrupt in 1927 and the bridge seemed destined for unuse and decay; but thanks
to a couple significant subsequent efforts, the bridge has instead continued to
offer such social experiences ever since. In a 1928 letter to the
editor of a local paper, Shelburne’s Clara Barnard quoted her friend, the
late Antoinette Burnham; Burnham, collaborating with her invalid husband
Walter, had developed an idea to turn what could be an industrial eyesore into “a
bridge of beauty.” Later that year, the recently founded Shelburne
Falls Women’s Club sponsored the project, and in the spring of 1929 loam
and fertilizer were added to the bridge, providing the starting points for the
first blossomings of what has become an annual Bridge of Flowers.
To my mind, this inspiring moment represents a local, practical version of the City
Beautiful Movement, and indeed can be seen as an embodiment of that
movement’s emphasis on bringing natural beauty to all Americans, regardless of
their geographical location and social status.

If the idea
behind the Bridge of Flowers was designed to be perennial, however, the initial
building of the bridge had not been, and a 1975 Hampshire
College study determined that the bridge had deteriorated dangerously by
that time. A subsequent 1979 engineering study recommended repairs that would
cost nearly $600,000, but Shelburne Falls and its neighboring towns were up to
the challenge: a combined effort
of the Women’s Club, the Shelburne Falls Fire Department, and numerous private
donations, coupled with a sizeable Massachusetts
Small Cities Community Development Block Grant, yielded the full required
amount, and the restoration efforts began in May 1983. My favorite detail about
those efforts is that every plant from the bridge was removed and cared for in
private gardens throughout the restorations, so that they and the bridge could
be returned to full bloom once it was safe and ready once more. No idea, no
matter how inspiring or beautiful, can be sustained without continued care and
commitment, a reality potently illustrated by the beautiful Western Mass
landmark that is the Bridge of Flowers.

Last history
tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you
think? Histories and stories from your home you’d highlight?

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